UPDATING OCCASIONALLY (FOR NOW)

5 thoughts on “558 – Cotton Clad Calamity”

  1. Raznaak

    Yup, he’s a bastard XD

  2. Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)

    Are those pajamas available in XXXL in the gift shop?

  3. Otaku

    It’s been a while, so let me ask: Did we get a reason for him to WANT Susie dead? Not to backseat, but if we didn’t, I’m worried were about to move into “Stupid Evil” territory. Now, stupid happens, don’t get me wrong. It’s not bad storytelling for that to be the case here.

    You’ve just done a good job NOT having that be a driving factor, so the “Kill off the stars of my successful reality TV show.” seems shortsighted, otherwise. Oh, I guess I could be mistaken about the in-story reality TV show’s success. Like, if the company behind them is losing money, or they think a change in management at the ranch would make the whole thing more popular/profitable, then I can see the above scenario happening as well.

    I REALLY think I’m just forgetting something important, but that I don’t have time to deep dive to remind me of, hence the comment. >_<

    1. Deoxy

      It certainly has been stretched out over quite a while, but there have definitely been hints from quite near the beginning that whoever is running the reality TV show definitely wants her dead.

      But I certainly don’t recall any reason why.

      1. Clint

        Yeah it’s fair to not remember since it’s been a hot minute (many, many minutes) but if you feel like a refresher the most relevant bits would be the beginning of Episode 8 and the end of Episode 15. We haven’t explicitly spelled out exactly what The Exec means by his “side hustle” or who was on the other end of that phone call, though.

        I’m hoping that when the whole thing is eventually available it will make sense, or at least enough sense to have hung this narrative on.

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558 – Cotton Clad Calamity
Posted on August 26, 2026 by Dawn

What would you call this? Armchair assassination? Merk-from-home?

Well, Suzie ain't dead (or undead) quite yet, so we'll just have to see if his gloating is justifiable.

Generational drama…

Posted on May 29, 2024 by Clint

I put a flippant title on this, in full knowledge that hey, that’s a decent pun and I’m depriving myself of a comic page title down the road. Although I’m pretty sure if I scoured through the now over 500 pages of Zombie Ranch I’d find at least some repeats by this point, since in my arrogant youth (well, 30-something youth) I presumed I would have endless reserves of wit to keep the hits coming.

But it’s what, 2009 then and 2024 now, and that’s… 15 years? Yowza. This comic isn’t old enough to register to vote yet but it’s getting there. When we talk of “generations” the definition can get fuzzy but I personally think of it as about that amount of time, the time it would take for a baby born to become an adult, give or take a few cycles. It’s the time when babies start becoming moms and dads of babies of their own, and their moms and dads therefore become grandparents, and maybe the now great-grandparents are still kicking around at the upper end.

Although Dawn and I have no children, I am certainly of the age now where I could have been a grandparent (without any statutory laws being broken), which in turn puts the generation I grew up with as my immediate adults to that “great-grand” status.

The big problem being, of course, that’s around when the dying starts. The past ten years have seen my mom and her two sisters pass away, basically that whole maternal side of the family. Their respective husbands live on and although I share only blood relation with my father, I am quite fond of my two uncles. All of them have had some scares recently but recovered… well, except…

Look, y’all know I don’t bother you about the personal life much, but I’ll just say this month about why we’ve been delaying. One of my uncles was found collapsed in his home, and was diagnosed with a stroke, and although it’s a kind of stroke where he still knows who we are and such, he’s probably never going to walk again. And since he is also childless I’ve been taking point as the relative who lives closest because everyone agreed he was no longer going to be safe living on his own and needed to get into assisted living.

What has unfolded in these past several weeks has been such a spoon-bending tragicomedy of bureaucracy as to make me feel at times like I was experiencing my own bouts of dementia, and I extend thanks to Dawn and also all of you for your patience. It wasn’t a funeral thankfully, but a little voice does whisper “not yet” and remind me that this is a time when the people I grew up with as such vibrant adults are going away and will continue to be going away, in many cases with more whimper than bang, and I will continue to be on the frontlines of that whereas in the past I insulated, separated by a generation from the generational trauma and drama alike.

It’s a sobering thought. One to make you reach for Chuck’s stash and have a nice stiff drink.